Labels used on containers of dangerous, medicinal and/or sensitive materials are usually required to carry information concerning handling precautions, use restrictions, directions for use and storage or other pertinent information. Often the quantity of information exceeds the space on the label available for printing, especially if the container is small and cannot accommodate a large label.
Various means have been proposed to increase the available printing area, such as providing a section of the label which has been accordion folded under an adhesive coated portion of the label. The accordion folded section is then accessed by tearing a perforation which secures the folded area to the container and unfolding that section. However, once the label has been accessed, it is not possible to reattach the label to the container.
Another solution has been to provide the label with a length which extends around the container more than one time.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,324,058 to Sherwick et al. discloses a label having a length longer than the circumference of the container. The label includes a first adhesive layer which is used to secure the label to the container and a releasable adhesive portion which contacts the surface of the label to releasably attach the overlapping portion of the label to the portion of the label already attached to the container. To facilitate removal of the overlapping portion from the rest of the label, the label includes a tab and a releasable contact area.
Another solution was offered by Ingle in U.S. Pat. No. 4,727,667. In Ingle, the label includes an overlapping portion which extends around the container. The overlapping portion is releasably attached to a portion of the label with a pressure sensitive adhesive which has been partially overcoated with a nonadhesive compound to limit its stickiness. This overcoated portion then allows the overlapping portion to be removed from and replaced on the container because the total area of adhesive has been reduced by the overcoating.
However, these types of labels are ineffective because they require the use of more than one adhesive or the use of an additional substance, such as an overcoating, to reduce the stickiness of the adhesive layer. Because these types of labels have an underlying portion on which information is printed and to which the overlapping portion of the label is stuck, when the overlapping portion is removed, the printing on the underlying portions may be partially or totally transferred from the surface of the label to the back side of the overlapping portion making it difficult, if not impossible, to read the information. Further, by applying an adhesive to the entire back surface of the label, it becomes difficult to print indicia on the back side of the label and/or to read any indicia printed on the back side of the label once the label is secured to the container.
For these reasons, a need has developed in the art for a label which can carry large amounts of printed information and on which the message on the underlying portion of the label is not adversely affected when the overlapping portion is removed.